Saturday

Abridged Gaming

Dear aspiring and current game designers,

As a child I always aspired to become a game developer. I couldn't articulate why that was at the time. I think it had to do with the fact that I loved imagining, and wanted to bring my imaginations finally to life.

Today, I still aspire to be a independent game developer. For two reasons:

I want to express myself, just as I did when I was a child

I wish for this expression to be of value to people

When college came around, reality hit my dreams of being a game developer. People don't have time for games. Video games, for the most part today, require a large commitment that no art today asks of the art appreciator.

And after you spend this money and put in a part-time job's worth of time you are allowed to experience the art. And what experience do the most popular ones offer? being a soldier and athlete. There are original games that hit the mainstream every once in a while(being a father in distress comes to mind). But even these games ask the user to spend 6 hours or more in gameplay (reasonable). And $65 USD with tax or 9 hours of labor of minimum wage worker. Is this a good way of doing things? Limiting your audience by either how much time they have and/or how much money they have. Movies, music, and books don't do this. The barrier of entry to each of these things is low(just think about it). So what can games do?

Get shorter

Get cheaper

Offer more value

Some people want to be demonic guntoting swordsman mercenary fighting off hell's demons but we also have homework to do, kids to take care of, and life to experience. Games like this need to make me a better offer then $60 for 14 hours. I have maybe a half hour of free time with an engineering curriculum why can't I just pay $5 for an hour long version of this? I will elaborate on the offering more value in another post.